Broadband adoption in U.S.: A mixed bag

A new study out by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that while 55% of all Americans have a broadband connection at home, up from 47% in early 2007, poorer Americans saw no increase during this time and their access rates are under 50% compared to more than 80% of upper-income Americans.

Why does this matter? In this age of bandwidth-greedy job preview videos, java-filled interactive career websites, and realistic job assessments, a high-speed connection is becoming increasingly a necessity. The good news is more than half of Americans can engage in these experiences at home. The bad news? Not only will access to some of these sites most likely have an adverse impact against certain groups (see below), this will reduce an organization's ability to draw an applicant pool that contains the most diverse backgrounds.

With that in mind, consider these findings:

* While 70% of those age 18-29 reported having broadband at home, only 50% of those age 50-64 did.

* While 57% of White respondents had broadband at home, only 43% of Black respondents did (let's see, four-fifths of 57% is...). On a more positive note, 56% of English-speaking Hispanic respondents had this access.

* 79% of those with at least a college education had home broadband access; only 40% of high school grads did.

* 60% of suburban respondents and 57% of urban respondents had this access; only 38% of rural respondents did.


"But people can always go to a library," is a response I often hear. That may be true, although not everyone lives within easy access of a library. But libraries aren't open 24/7. And many times they're busy during peak hours. And many aren't exactly a Starbucks cafe. Do you really want to create these barriers?

So what can we do about it? Here are some ideas:

* Make sure your careers site has a low-bandwidth alternative

* Consider offering a staffed on-site computer center that operates during off-peak hours (e.g., 6-8am, 5-7pm, weekends)

* Think long and hard about whether you're adopting bandwidth-hogging features because they're there or because they'll actually add value.

For more details, check out the report.

Taking a look at VisualCV

Last week I spoke with a rep over at VisualCV. She had been nice enough to put together an employer site for me, so we chatted about the site's capabilities as well as some other details about the company.

What is VisualCV? As you would suspect from the name, the site offers job seekers the ability to create a visually appealing version of their resume/CV.

Here's an example of what a job seeker's VisualCV might look like. As you'll see, users have the option to add pictures, videos, and files, and I can tell you from playing on the employer side of things, it's a simple point-and-click affair.

The website has been open since February and according to the rep already has around 10,000 resumes and profiles of about 350 employers. The fact that the service is free (for now) should help raise those numbers.

In terms of search capability, right now you can only search for people by name. So this would be handy if you already knew someone had a VisualCV, but not much help if you're trying to generate names. The plan is to expand search capability in the coming months.

In terms of contacting individuals, there is no charge for doing so (a big difference from other databases like LinkedIn) unless you were doing something like an e-mail blast.

All in all, definitely worth checking out. And if you'd like to read more, I'm certainly not the first to post about 'em. For more information, check out Joel's and Amybeth's posts.

New SIOP networking groups

The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), bless its heart, is getting into the 21st century.

In their April newsletter they mention that two SIOP members, John Golden and Daniel Russell, have formed a LinkedIn group called I-O Practitioners Network. To join, click here. (If you don't have a LinkedIn account, and shame on you, you'll have a chance to create one)

But wait, that's not all, John Golden has also created a Ning site for I-O practitioners, which comes with joining the LinkedIn group. ("What the heck is Ning?" you say? Think Wikipedia meets MySpace)

So bravo, John! And SIOP, welcome to the party! (now will someone please tell them about RSS feeds?)

In search of highly skilled workers

The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) has a new study out called In Search of Highly Skilled Workers. Like all MSPB studies, it's focused on the federal government. But it has a lot of good info regardless of what sector you're in.

For example:

- MSPB recommended that departments should not rely exclusively on USAJOBS since this was not the primary way people found out about jobs--word of mouth was, through friends/relatives or their supervisor/co-workers

- More and more hires are being made from the veterans program, and this results in the most white males compared to other mechanisms; this has resulted in upper level hires trending toward white males. Interestingly, the most diverse hires were made through "direct hire", which does not require rating & ranking candidates.

- Use of the competitive exam process (e.g., need to rate & rank) is less and less frequent.

- Job security was by far the top reason new hires applied for federal jobs; other highly ranked factors included mission of organization, opportunity to serve the public/do good, benefits, and opportunity to use talents/have a better job.

- OPM's television campaign is seeing some success, with increased traffic.

- Candidates are pretty lazy and/or strapped for time. About 1/3 of hires did not apply for other jobs because they would have had to re-write their narrative description of their KSAs while about 1/4 did not because they would have to have rewritten their resume (!).

- More than ½ of upper-level hires were not aware of their application status until they called for an interview/job offer (sadly, probably not that rare).

- Many new hires indicated they would have accepted their job even with a reduction in pay because of workplace flexibilities and benefits.

- Coordination of hiring managers and HR was key: 98% of managers involved with the development of assessment tools said they got the talent they needed; only 82% of managers not involved felt that way.

- Upper level hires were willing to wait about 2 months between job application and job offer--most felt anything after that was unreasonable.

- Things the feds don't do well? According to new hires, they don't deal effectively with poor performers, their leave benefits could be better, and (not surprisingly) they weren't thrilled with the pay.

- Something else federal departments can improve on: providing clear minimum qualifications that truly are the "lowest bar", and verifying that applicants have them.

Good lessons here for employers everywhere.

Mini book review: Groundswell

Did you know that by reading this blog post you've been put into a category? Yep, at the very least you're a "spectator." In fact, you might be a "joiner", a "collector", a "critic" or even (as I am) a "creator." Where am I getting these labels? They all come from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff's new book, Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies.

This is by no means a new subject. There have been quite a few books in recent years that cover social technologies and how they can be used productively. But these books have tended to have either a more narrow focus (e.g., by focusing on particular technologies or organizational functions such as marketing) or an extremely broad focus. In Groundswell, Li and Bernoff, both VPs and analysts at Forrester Research, describe the current slate of social technologies and provide organizations with a road map of how they should (or shouldn't) be used.

Those of you familiar with Charlene's blog will recognize much of the content of the book--in fact to be honest there aren't a lot of new concepts in the book, which is a potential drawback. The book is, to a large extent, a collection of the various concepts that the authors have already published. But there's no denying that having it all in one place is mighty handy, and the in-depth case studies serve to flush out the details. And those of you that aren't avid readers of the blog will find much in here to digest.

So what is "the groundswell"? According to the authors it's "A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations."

These technologies include all the usual suspects, including blogs, wikis, social networks, forums, review sites, tags, RSS, widgets--you get the point. They also touch on newer technologies such as Twitter (which isn't so new anymore).

The biggest strength of the book lies in its description of two concepts:

- the social technographic ladder, a graphical description of various categories of technology participation. These are the categories I mentioned at the beginning of this post and it's how the authors suggest organizations stratify their customers to figure out what social technology will work best.

- POST, the authors' recommendation for how to plan to engage the groundswell. This deliberate, logical approach to using social technologies is the biggest takeaway from the book. It recognizes that not all technologies are appropriate for all organizations and provides users with a rational way of planning the strategic implementation of them.

On balance, the book is an easy read and provides a great mix of big picture considerations with real-world examples. Unless you're completely new to the subject it's not likely to rock your world, but if you're interested in using social technologies but aren't sure how, this is not a bad book to have.

What would improve the book? More specifics--details--on how exactly to use the technologies. Best practices for setting up a Facebook page, for example. The different blogging platforms and their pros and cons. It's not enough to understand the concept of the technology--you need to understand the technology itself.

So what does all this have to do with recruitment and assessment? Quite a bit actually, but mostly with the former (after all, check out where people spend their time). Tapping into social technologies is a great way to spread and monitor your employment brand--i..e, why should people want to work for you? It's also a great way to identify potential candidates and spread the word about opportunities. In terms of testing, we're not there yet (and won't be until we have a secure database of individual test scores). But maybe that's okay--after all you want a job-person match, not a person-test score match.

So why did I call this a mini-review? Because I haven't read the whole book (yet). I've read most of the beginning and latter chapters, but haven't made my way through the middle, which is comprised mostly of case studies. I don't claim to have read it cover-to-cover, so take this review with that in mind.

Web 2.0 Presentation

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting at WRIPAC's April meeting in beautiful Napa, CA.

The topic was "Recruiting in the Age of Web 2.0" and I covered topics such as wikis, social networking, and blogs (which, coincidentally, I'm sure they're talking about right now just over the hills in San Francisco at the Web 2.0 Expo).

For those of you that weren't able to attend but are interested, you can view the slideshow below or here.

Rocket-hire releases 5th annual survey results

I don't usually link to a single article, but this is an exception. Every year, Rocket-Hire and our friend Dr. Charles Handler release the results of an annual survey on the usage of online screening and assessment tools. This year marks the fifth survey and it's got some interesting results based on responses from 141 recruiting and hiring professionals:

1. Many, if not most, organizations are using an ATS. For large organizations (5,000+ employees), usage was 100%.

2. Surprisingly, many organizations are not using online qualification prescreening. Only 47% ask about basic qualifications while only 24% ask about technical skills or certifications. Why surprising? Because it's one thing ATSs tend to be decent at.

3. Use of personality measures as an assessment tool jumped in the last five years from 21% to 59% (which certainly matches the interest I'm seeing). In fact, they were the most popular assessment tool reported, followed closely by skills/knowledge tests. Least used? Simulations and online interviews. I see lots of potential in the former as our technology improves.

4. Assessment tools in general are more widely used than they were five years ago. "Fit" measures went from 29% to 40%, cognitive ability tests from 26% to 41%, and skills/knowledge tests leaped from 12% to 56%. This is good news indeed (assuming the tests are good!).

5. Unfortunately only 27% of users of prescreening tools and 36% of assessment users collect metrics to measure their success. Those that did were much more likely to find these measures effective. Hey, you can't know if you don't measure!

There's a lot more in the article (e.g., take a look at biodata usage). By the way, full results and analysis will be in the May issue of the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership.

2008 PTC-NC Conference, Day 2

In my previous post I talked about the first day of the 2008 PTC-NC Conference. Today I'll give you a rundown of the second day.

The day started off with a bang due to a keynote address by noted personality researcher Robert Hogan. Dr. Hogan never disappoints, and his presentation was a mini-history of personality testing combined with executive assessment and organizational performance--all in 75 minutes. Major themes included the importance of leadership personality, how reputation is much more important (from a measurement perspective) than identity, why leadership effectiveness should be defined by team performance, and the characteristics of great leaders (e.g., integrity, decisiveness, competence, vision). You can get some of the same flavor in a recent American Psychologist article he co-authored.

The first breakout featured Jim Higgins (Cal DOJ) discussing an internet-based applicant self-assessment career tool and Greg Beatty (IRS) describing how the IRS has modernized using a competency-based approach. I attended Greg's (since I work within throwing distance of Jim), and he provided a great overview of some of the innovative things the IRS is doing both for incumbents and applicants, including job simulations, online assessment tools, and a career management center. "IRS...really?" you say? Yup. Don't believe me? Check out the simplicity and ease of use of their career site.

The last sessions of the conference included one on how to use MS Excel to automate selection by Dan Kuang (Biddle) and another on the leadership developmental assessment center (LDAC) by Matt Gruver (CPS). I attended Matt's, where he provided a great overview of how to develop an LDAC, including the importance of competency definition, how top management involvement is key, and how participants often are very appreciative of the (unusually rare) honest feedback they receive. Can't wait to put one together!

Overall, a great program and kudos to the organizers! Looking forward to next year.

New HR Tests feature: Shared items

I read a lot of blogs and other websites. I try to include links to the most interesting things here, but I don't always get around to it.

So I've created a Shared Items site using Google Reader that's available here. If you're interested in receiving links to articles I found interesting, it is now available to you either through the webpage, by signing up to receive e-mails, or by using the feed.

If you use Google Reader, it's a simple click to add the feed to your list. If you don't, copy this shortcut and add it to your feed reader. I've also added the ability to sign up via e-mail and feed on my main page.

I'll still be referencing content here but I'm going to try to stick as much as possible to original content and analysis. This is just a way for those of you out there, like me, who have an unhealthy addiction to information.

Thanks for reading!

Wanted: Chief Magic Official

You've heard of Chief Knowledge Officer, Chief Fun Officer, and even Chief Evangelist.

But Chief Magic Official?

One guess as to who would be filling that job title.

If you guessed Disney, go to the head of the class.

Yes, Disney is out to hire it's first "CMO" who will appear periodically to grant "dreams" to guests at Disney Parks in Anaheim and Orlando this year. Disney's put together a great recruiting website that includes:

- A Magic Aptitude Test (M.A.T.) that you can take to see if you qualify--you have to take a look at it just to see the pencil you'll be using for the test (by the way, I passed and am apparently similar to Mickey Mouse)

- A great job preview video

- A creative job description and statement of qualifications

In a new twist, applications must include a video resume that will be voted on online. The top three vote getters will be invited (along with three guests) to Walt Disney World resort for further vetting.

So will this work? Probably. It is Disney, after all, who doesn't usually have too much trouble attracting candidates. And some research indicates applicants are more attracted to creative job titles.

But whatever happens, you gotta admire their creativity!

December '07 IJSA, Part 1

The December '07 issue of the International Journal of Selection and Assessment (IJSA) has a lot of great content, so I decided to split it up between two posts. This post will be devoted to one of the studies because it's such a hot topic--web-based recruitment.

In this study, Van Hoye and Lievens gathered data from 108 applicants for head nurse positions in Belgium and looked at how they responded to two types of web-based information. The first was employee testimonials ("click here to see our happy employees talk about their jobs!"), a very common approach used by many organizations including Enterprise, Google, and the U.S. government.

The second was employer recommendations via word of mouth; in this case because it was over the web, the authors dubbed it word-of-mouse ("hey, did you hear about the opportunity at XWZ? They're a great place to work.").

Results? Well, there are several, and they all link back to source credibility.

First, word-of-mouse was a more powerful attractant than testimonials. Why? It appears the testimonials are seen as obviously controlled by the organization (and therefore possibly misleading), whereas word-of-mouse is seen as more credible. However, if you're going to use testimonials, those that focus on the individual were much more powerful than those focusing on the organization. The reverse was true for word-of-mouse: a focus on the organization was more powerful than on the employees (which underlines the importance of employer brand).

The big result is that considering all four combinations, word-of-mouse information about the organization was the clear winner in terms of attracting applicants. So efforts designed to increase the likelihood of people spreading the good word about your organization are likely to pay off. How do we do that? The authors offer some focus areas:

- image management
- campus recruitment
- building relationships with key opinion leaders (e.g., career counselors, class presidents)
- employee referral programs
- internships

I would add another: make sure your employees like what they do! Happy employees are hands down one of your most effective recruiting techniques (assuming you can't offer millions in stock options).

This is a keeper, folks, and there's a version here thanks to Dr. Lievens.

Content of the year

At the end of this, the first full year of this blog's existence, I decided to take a look back at 2007 and give you my Top 5 most popular posts of the year:

1. Jobfox plays matchmaker (there continues to be significant interest in Jobfox and their non-traditional approach to matching applicants with employers)

2. Reliability and validity--it's okay to Despair(.com). Whether it's the statistics words or Despair, I'll never know. But people sure like those little posters (and remember, you can make your own).

3. Personality testing basics (Part 2). As you can see from the sidebar survey, folks continue to be very interested in personality testing.

4. Wonderlic revises their cognitive ability test. Wonderlic, one of the oldest and most famous testing companies, continues to generate interest.

5. Checkster and SkillSurvey automate reference checking. There's further development to be had, but I do believe these tools could be a boon to HR and supervisors alike.

Okay, so enough about me. What about what everyone else is writing about? Here are my nominations for content of the year:

1. Morgeson et al. fired a shot across the bow of personality testing with their piece in Personnel Psychology that resulted in multiple, shall we say, not so thrilled responses. I don't know where this debate is going (although I suspect alternate measurement methods will play a part) but it sure is fun to watch!

2. There were some great books I came across this year. Particular props for Understanding statistics, Evidence-based management, and Personality and the fate of organizations. Yes, they were all published in 2006...are you saying I'm behind?

3. Dineen et al.'s great little piece of research on P-O fit and website design in the March issue of J.A.P. that I wrote about here. Take a look at your career website with these results in mind.

4. The Talent Unconference was a big success, and I'm very thankful that many of the presentations were videotaped; I put up links to some of them here

5. McDaniel et al.'s meta-analysis of situational judgment test instructions. Not only is this a great piece of research, it's (still) free!

So what about my New Years wish from last year? I'm still waiting. Although if people search databases like Spock eventually get up enough steam...perhaps I'll get my wish?

Here's to hoping 2008 is filled with interesting and useful things!

Links a go-go

A smörgåsbord of good reading for this holiday week, 2007:

More evidence that IQ has a environmental component

Teens creating Internet content in greater numbers

New law increases mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots

Wednesday best day of week to send out recruitment e-mail (hat tip)

How to improve your corporate career website (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV)

Ford, et al. wrap up EEOC lawsuit over written exam

Free ATS! No, really! (Okay, there are several installation steps)

...and last but not least, for those of you doing major shopping this week:

Recruiting at the mall (I've wondered why more orgs don't do this!)

Links a go-go

Good reading for December 14, 2007:

Why your company needs to be on Facebook

Target Corp. to pay $510K for race discrimination in application process

Check out the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's virtual conference

Monster launches website targeting Hispanic applicants

SIOP's December, 2007 newsletter

Is your organization green? Candidates want to know.

Using social networking sites to reach out to entry-level hires

The importance of background checks (white paper)

HR.com's Virtual Conference

If you want to see something creative, head on over to HR.com's virtual conference called VIEW, which is taking place today and tomorrow.

HR.com says this conference, which is very Second Life-ish, will have 40+ speakers, 1000+ attendees and 70+ vendors.

Right now I'm watching Carly Fiorina talk about leadership. Later presentations include:

Managing a Talent Pool for Succession Planning

The Federal E-Verify Program and Electronic I-9 Compliance

Quality of Hire

Creating Value Exchange in the Candidate Experience

...and a lot more. Creative stuff! And oh yah, it's free.

Jobfox members look upward

Jobfox is a job site I've posted about before that is making an attempt to more accurately match candidates with employers. The idea is to allow candidates to describe themselves in detail, including their work preferences, then have employers seek them (hence their motto, "be the hunted.")

Speaking of work preferences, one of the features the Jobfox offers is the ability for candidates to select up to five features of a job that they value the most--things like 401k matching, unstructured environment, and work/life balance.

Since Jobfox has all this information on people, they recently posted an analysis of results of over 6,000 registered job seekers. The press release focuses on the dearth of "green" factors people are looking for (e.g., looking for a company that is ecologically friendly), but to me the take home is about career advancement. Take a look at the top six desired job qualities:

Advancement opportunity (55%)
More leadership responsibility (41%)
Work/life balance (38%)
Leadership that's respected/admired (36%)
Sense of accomplishment (36%)
Higher salary (28%)

Notice that half of these, including the two most popular, are related to moving up in an organization.

The other result of note has to do with another kind of green (in the U.S. at least). Look at where salary is--down at #6. This suggests (and smart organizations know) there are ways of attracting and retaining talented folks simply by offering ways for people to take on increased responsibility and leadership opportunities, or restructuring the job (which might also help with that sense of accomplishment).

Links a go-go: Halloween Edition

Good reading for this October 31, 2007--enough to frighten us into paying renewed attention to our recruiting and assessment:

Testing without analysis...now that's scary!

It's scary, all the things that get in the way of job performance

What's that sound? Oh, just ATS reports running.

Be afraid...very afraid...of drop-down menus!

Hope your career portal isn't frighteningly bad

The number of job boards is truly monstrous

Looking far and wide

When it comes to finding talented individuals, how far and wide do you look? Are you as creative as you could be?

In a recent article James E. Challenger, of the outsourcing firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, described the results of a new study in which half of the 100 HR executives polled stated their companies work informally with former employees; 23% considered stay-at-home parents to be valuable recruiting targets. The goal? Finding folks that are experienced and easy to train.

What does your organization do when people leave? Does it go beyond getting a forwarding address? How about following a structured approach to keep track of talented individuals in case their next job fizzles?

Challenger cites Lehman Brothers as a leader in this area with its Encore program, which according to the website is "designed to facilitate networking and professional development opportunities for individuals interested in resuming their careers in the financial services industry. Ideal candidates are women and men, preferably with industry-related experience at a vice-president level or above, who have voluntarily left the workforce for a year or more."

Does your organization actively recruit people that have been out of the workforce for a year or more? Or are these people seen as "stale"?

The article also includes "resources for returning parents", including:

UCEAdirectory.org (searchable database of continuing education courses)

Meetup.com (real-world social networking)

Modernmom.com (advice on activities and work-life balance)

Showmomthemoney.com (money tips, degree links, and more)

Ladies Who Launch (networking and entrepreneurial advice)

Has your organization considered recruiting efforts that target these types of groups? Or is it hoping that qualified applicants find you?

Some things to think about as we all work on being more creative with reaching out to all qualified candidates. I bet there are a lot of folks out there that would love to see a list of employers willing to hire returning workers (as well those that are open to part-time arrangements).

Increasing response rates to web surveys

I'm guessing I'm not the only one that has been using web surveys more and more (I'm a big fan of SurveyMonkey), and we'll probably all do more in the future. That's why this recent bit of research by Dr. Thomas Archer is so valuable. It's titled, "Characteristics associated with increasing the response rates of web-based surveys" and it's based on results from 99 various web-based surveys over a more than two-and-a-half year period using Zoomerang.

The results were somewhat surprising (to me at least). The length of the questionnaire wasn't particularly important in terms of response rate. This included both the number of open-ended questions and the length of rating scales. Instead the challenge is getting people to the survey in the first place.

How do we do that? The author recommends several strategies:

1 - Leave the questionnaire open for a while (say, three weeks), and send out a couple reminders along the way.

2 - Pay attention to how you write your survey invitations. They should be written at a low grade level in terms of readability.

3 - Make it clear to survey participants "what's in it for them" (e.g., you'll get a copy of the results).

If you haven't played around with web-based surveys, I'd encourage you to. They're very easy to learn and typically inexpensive.

I'd be interested in seeing if anyone out there is using web-based surveys as part of their recruitment/assessment process? Seems like a natural fit.

Checkster and SkillSurvey automate reference checking

When it comes to things that supervisors (and, frankly, HR) don't look forward to, reference checking probably ranks in the top 5. Checking references is time consuming and difficult to do well, because many references refuse to do more than confirm name, job title, salary, and employment dates for fear of getting sued. This is unfortunate, since lawsuits in this area are quite rare and reference checks can be a great source of information.

So it was with no small amount of excitement that I discovered two web-based services that are automating the reference check process--Checkster and SkillSurvey. The basic idea behind these services is that a brief survey consisting of both rating scales and open-ended questions is sent out electronically to references; responses to these surveys (generally at least 3) are combined by the services into an overall report for the employer. While the services are substantially similar, in this post I'll give you a brief overview of each.

Checkster

Checkster is the brainchild of CEO Yves Lermusi, formerly of Taleo (and frequent contributor to ERE). Lermusi noticed that the frequency and quality of the performance feedback most people receive drops dramatically when they move from school to work, making it difficult for people to understand their strengths and areas for development. To help remedy this, he developed Checkster to be a "personal feedback management tool"--a focus that he says distinguishes it from other services, whose bread and butter is employer-based reference checking. Applicants receive the results of the reference check, just as the employer does, with the idea that this information will be used to help people develop and make better decisions regarding their career.

With Checkster, the employer simply enters the name and e-mail address of each applicant along with the requisition and selects the type of survey to be delivered (Checkster also has a 360-degree survey). That's it. Simple, eh? The applicant takes it from there, logging into Checkster and entering reference names and contact information. References have 7 days to take the quick and confidential survey, and Checkster compiles the resulting information into a report after at least three responses have been collected. From the employer's side, a simple account screen allows you to manage your requisitions and see the status of each. You can see an overview of how it works here, and watch a demo here that includes pictures of a report.

Big bonus: Checkster also has a free employment verification feature which will send an e-mail to previous employers to verify dates of employment, reporting structure, compensation, and eligibility for rehire.

Price: $50 per requisition, which allows you to check references for up to five candidates with a maximum of 15 references per candidate (volume discounts are also available).

SkillSurvey

As I mentioned, SkillSurvey and Checkster work in a similar fashion--the employer enters candidate information, the candidate enters reference information (or the employer can), references evaluate the candidate, and SkillSurvey generates the report.

Differences between Checkster and SkillSurvey that I observed:

1) SkillSurvey allows you to choose different types of surveys depending on the job. Each includes competencies developed by SkillSurvey staff. For example, there are different surveys for sales positions, IT positions, and HR positions (click here for an example for Marketing Manager).

2) Each point on SkillSurvey's rating scale is anchored, which could potentially lead to better reliability.

3) SkillSurvey reports are not automatically available to the candidate (unlike Checkster)--this reflects the emphasis that SkillSurvey places on being primarily a tool for the employer, versus Checkster's focus on individual development.

4) SkillSurvey has a sourcing component built in--you can download a spreadsheet that contains all the information on reference-givers that you can sort and use to identify applicants (very cool).

5) Checkster's reports are a little shorter and more graphical, while SkillSurvey reports are more text-based and extensive.

6) In terms of customization, SkillSurvey offers many options for altering things like turnaround time, and even weighting questions.

7) The actual text that goes out from candidates is easier to modify using Checkster.

A SkillSurvey overview video with screens of surveys and reports is available here, and sample reports are here. They even have a blog written by Doug LaPasta, their founder and chairman.

Price: $59 for one candidate with significant discounts for volume; usually charged in units of 100 candidates. The employer controls the number of reference givers required for completion of the report (anywhere from 2-15).

By the way, SkillSurvey was selected as a Top HR Product for 2007 by Human Resource Executive.

Summary

Both products have the potential to dramatically decrease the amount of time spent checking references, and have the added benefits of standardization as well as indicating an affinity for technology. Both companies have taken steps to ensure reference givers feel comfortable giving out information. The information may also be of higher quality since the process is being handled by a third party.

Both services were extremely easy to use. I found representatives from both companies to be knowledgeable and helpful. I'm sure as both products mature we'll see great additions, including hopefully an increased ability to gather off-list checks and even more options for tailoring the surveys.

Some things to keep in mind: (1) Like all mass-mailing type services, make sure e-mails from these companies don't get blocked by firewalls; and (2) Because some candidates may provide false references, do periodic spot checks (e.g., by verifying name & e-mail address).

I hope this has peaked your interest; I suggest checking out both products to see if either would make your life easier!